Riggs Bank
From The Matrix
Riggs Bank is a Washington, DC-based commercial bank with branches located in the surrounding metropolitan area and offices around the world. Since the 1980s it had been controlled by the Albritton family which owned much of the stock, but they have recently been forced to sell all assets to PNC Bank due to corporate scandals and management problems.
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[edit] History
The earliest incarnation of Riggs Bank was formed in 1836 when William Wilson Corcoran opened a small brokerage house. In 1840, Corcoran and George Washington Riggs, the son of a neighbor, formed "Corcoran & Riggs", which offered checking and depositing services. The bank got a major boost in 1844, when The U.S. government assigned Corcoran & Riggs to be the only federal depository in Washington. In 1854 Corcoran retired, and the bank changed its name to "Riggs & Co." After accepting a government charter, "Riggs National Bank" was born in 1896. By 1900, Riggs was twice as large as any other bank in D.C. Riggs embarked on a successful project to become known as the bank of embassies and diplomats, and by 1950 most embassies in Washington were customers. Since then, many branches have been opened within embassies in Washington D.C. and London. After several scandals in the early 2000s, Riggs bank was bought by PNC on July 16, 2004.
[edit] Trivia
- Twenty-two U.S. Presidents or their families have banked at Riggs, including John Tyler, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Accounts have also been held by Senators Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, Confederate president Jefferson Davis, American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, suffragist Susan B. Anthony, and generals William Tecumseh Sherman and Douglas MacArthur.
- Corcoran & Riggs financed Samual Morse's invention of the telegraph in 1845.
- The bank lent $16 million to the U.S. government to pay for the Mexican War in 1847.
- In 1868, Riggs provided $7.2 million in financing for the purchase of Alaska.
- In 1809, Riggs's president formally presented to the U.S. Congress a plan for economic relief. Many financial reforms were implemented as a result of this plan, including the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913.
- In 2002, Joe L. Allbritton, the Chairman of the Board, was inducted into the Washington Business Hall of Fame. This may be considered ironic due to the scandals that would unfold over the next two years.
[edit] Scandals
Riggs was recently fined $25 million and forced to take corrective action by the U.S. Treasury over its allowing foreign embassies to illegally withdraw money without notification.
(More is needed here.)
